In the “Contrary Miracles Argument,” Hume argues that the occurrence of miracle stories in rival religions should undermine our belief in the trustworthiness of these reports. In order for this argument to have any merit, it has to be understood in its historical, religious context. Miracle stories are used in support of religions, and it's part of religion as we find it to reject miracle stories from rival traditions. A defender of miracle stories could avoid the argument by breaking the (...) connection between miracles and religious doctrine, but then miracles won't justify revealed religion. (shrink)

Special issue of the Journal for Early Modern Studies (4.1., Spring 2005) Guest Editor: Lucian Petrescu. -/- .

REVIEW (1): "Jeff Kochan’s book offers both an original reading of Martin Heidegger’s early writings on science and a powerful defense of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) research program. Science as Social Existence weaves together a compelling argument for the thesis that SSK and Heidegger’s existential phenomenology should be thought of as mutually supporting research programs." (Julian Kiverstein, in Isis) ---- REVIEW (2): "I cannot in the space of this review do justice to the richness and range of Kochan's (...) discussion [...]. There is a great deal in this foundational portion of Kochan's discussion that I find tremendously interesting and engaging [...]." (David R. Cerbone, in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science) ---- REVIEW (3): "Science as Social Existence will be of interest not only to Heidegger scholars but to anyone engaged in science and technology studies. [...] This is an informative and original book. Kochan should be praised for his clear, pleasant-to-read prose." (Michael Butler, in CHOICE). (shrink)

This paper reconstructs the natural philosophical method of Geminiano Montanari, one of the most prominent Italian natural philosophers of the late seventeenth century. Montanari’s views are used as a case study to assess recent claims concerning early modern experimental philosophy. Having presented the distinctive tenets of seventeenth-century experimental philosophers, I argue that Montanari adheres to them explicitly, thoroughly, and consistently. The study of Montanari’s views supports three claims. First, experimental philosophy was not an exclusively British phenomenon. Second, in spite of (...) some portrayals of experimental philosophy as an ‘atheoretical’ or ‘purely descriptive’ enterprise, experimental philosophers could consistently endorse a variety of natural philosophical explanations and postulate theoretical entities. Third, experimental philosophy and mechanical philosophy were not, as such, antagonistic. They could be consistently combined in a single philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

A frequently recounted episode in early modern medicine concerns the physician Helvetius's introduction of ipecacuanha to French medical practice after curing Louis XIV's son of dysentery using this medicinal drug. To this day, the Helvetius story remains riven with contradictions, obscurity, and confusion, even down to the nature of the drug involved. This article, challenging histories of “information” as homogeneous and neutral, explores how Helvetius's reputation as a physician and pharmaceutical entrepreneur was crafted through print and correspondence. Rather than seeking (...) to establish a definitive account of “what actually happened,” it addresses the ways in which different media shaped and mediated the politics of knowledge surrounding Helvetius and his drug. Considerations of intellectual and commercial property inflected medical knowledge in different ways, producing distinct strategies of publicity. While Helvetius capitalized on courtly connections to promote himself and his drug, rivals eyed the Republic of Letters as an alternate route for establishing natural knowledge-claims. Yet the arch-newsmonger of the Republic of Letters, Leibniz, elected to preserve the connection between Helvetius and ipecacuanha in print. I argue that Leibniz's actions stemmed from a view of the public domain that downplayed discovery and emphasized disclosure of medical secrets in the public interest. (shrink)

Abstract Boyle distinguished clearly between the areas which we would call scientific and theological. However, he felt that they overlapped seamlessly, and that the truths we discovered (or which were revealed to us) in one of these areas would be relevant to us in the other. In this paper I outline and discuss Boyle's views on the limitations of human knowing, Boyle's arguments in favour of accepting the revelations of the Christian faith, and his views on the kind of epistomological (...) standing that scientific knowledge claims have. Given this background I then consider the relation between hypotheses, theories and facts in Boyle's work, and consider a particular case, that of Boyle's Law, as an exemplification of the claims made in the rest of the paper. (shrink)

The articles in the special issue "Experience in natural philosophy and medicine" discuss the roles and notions of experience in the works of a range of early modern authors, including Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, the Dutch atomist David Gorlaeus, William Harvey, and Christian Wolff. The articles extend the evidential basis on which we can rely to identify trends, changes and continuities in the roles and notions of experience in the period of the Scientific Revolution. They shed light on the longstanding (...) influence of traditional views and the emergence of early modern experimental philosophy. This introduction highlights the benefits of considering medicine in connection with natural philosophy when studying early modern views on experience and summarizes the articles. (shrink)

First Published in 2008. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This paper is concerned with the particular problems raised by observations of phenomena outside the common course of nature for their validation as knowledge. It examines to what extent the content of the reports and, in particular, their lack of intrinsic plausibility affected the methods used in their authentication and the assessment of testimony at the Royal Society in the first half of the eighteenth century. I show that literary strategies were usually necessary but not sufficient for the validation of (...) these kinds of observations. Next, I discuss why visual representations were especially useful in establishing the singularity of the observations, but I point out that their high costs and other restrictions meant that they were not so widespread. In contrast I show that, for a long period of time, testimony was used in the majority of the reports as the true stamp of authenticity. I note, however, that the Royal Society accepted reports by authors of varied social status, level of education and occupation, and I discuss some of the factors responsible for the complexity of the handling of testimony at the Society. I argue against Shapin that in the case of reports of extraordinary phenomena, the competence of the reporter and witnesses was often more important than their social status. The increasing role of expertise in the assessment of observations at the Society become especially apparent by the middle of the eighteenth century.Author Keywords: Authentication; Competence; Monstrous births; Singular; Testimony; Royal Society of London. (shrink)

ArgumentTalk of “reason” and “rationality” has been perennial in the philosophy and sciences of the European, Latin tradition since antiquity. But the use of these terms in the early-modern period has left especial marks on the specialties and disciplines that emerged as components of “science” in the modern world. By examining discussions by seventeenth-century philosophers, including natural philosophers such as Descartes, Pascal, and Hobbes, the practical meanings of, specifically, inferential reasoning can be seen as reducing, for most, to intellectual processes (...) deriving from foundations that required intuitional insight that was owing to God. Mechanical reasoning, or artificial intelligence, was a contradiction in terms for such as Pascal, whose views of his own arithmetical machine illustrate the issue well. Hobbes’ analysis of reason, however, replaced the ineffable authority of God with the authority of the civil power, to reveal the social reality of “reason” as nothing other than authorized judgment. (shrink)

Les philosophes naturels du XVIIe siècle accordent une importance croissante aux faits nouveaux et singuliers construits par des démonstrations spectaculaires réalisées devant témoins. Cet essai tente de montrer comment cette évolution s’opère comme une synthèse de deux courants auparavant disjoints, d’un côté la pratique coopérative et informelle, critique sans être véhémente, de savants dont Mersenne constitue un bon exemple dans les années 1630, et de l’autre celle des alchimistes, remettant radicalement en cause les savoirs traditionnels tout en restant viscéralement attachés (...) au secret. On montrera comment le cercle parisien qui se réunit autour du même Mersenne au milieu du siècle pour débattre des expériences du vide réalise cette synthèse particulière. Mais dans une communauté érudite intéressée surtout à employer les faits expérimentaux comme matériau nouveau dans les disputes philosophiques, et pour laquelle la correspondance privée constitue la principale source d’information sous la forme de narrations circonstanciées par des témoins des événements singuliers survenus au cours de démonstrations expérimentales, le récit à la première personne apparaît comme une ressource superflue lorsqu’il s’agit de passer au format imprimé; Pascal, par exemple, recourt dans ses traités à une description des expériences se déployant sur un registre hypothétique et syllogistique qui exclut la narration directe. Le succès ultérieur des techniques matérielles et littéraires administrant la preuve en donnant à voir le protocole expérimental peut alors être mieux compris si l’on considère la parenté que celles-ci entretiennent avec les pratiques de la lecture publique traditionnelles dans les cercles érudits, proximité qui leur permet d’enrichir la signification et d’accroître la force de persuasion de l’expérience artificielle aux yeux des mêmes audiences. (shrink)

The increased popularity of the label "cultural" within science studies, especially in relation to "cultural studies, " invites consideration of how it is and can be used in historical work. A lot more seems now to be invested in the notion of "cultural history. " This article examines some recent historiography of science as a means of considering what counts as cultural history in that domain and attempts to coordinate it with the sociologically informed studies of the past ten orfifteen (...) years. The label "sociocultural" seems a more useful term by which to capture recent developments. (shrink)